Labour leader Ed Miliband's stance on the Middle East has cost the party one prominent supporter - Maureen Lipman.

The actress said that for the first time in five decades she would not be voting Labour in the next election, in an article for the magazine Standpoint.

When she bumped into Mr Miliband recently, she had asked him to Friday night dinner, she said.

But now she is holding fire on the offer after he ordered his MPs to vote for a backbench motion which called for unilateral recognition of the state of Palestine.

Although in favour of a two-state solution herself, she branded the motion a "ludicrous piece of propaganda".

As an actress, she wrote, "I am often commended for my timing. Frankly, my dear, yours sucks…

"So come election day, I shall give my vote to another party.

"Almost any other party. Until my party is once more led by
mensches."